What's normal?

Salon.com had a great piece up this week: One parent is still a family: Words to the wise for a single parent from the child of one, this week in Salon's reader community, Table Talk. Here, an excerpt from Blogger Sky Bluesky: Everybody's family is weird and has its own unusual dynamics. Moms and dads divorce, there are aunts and uncles and grandparents who act as caretakers, there are stepmoms and stepdads. Adopted kids. Kids with disabilities. Kids where one is in special ed and one is in mainstream classes. Alcoholic parents. Disinterested parents. Parents who work too much and never see their kids. Kids adapt to whatever circumstances they're in, and that's what "normal" is to them. Being a single mom is hard sometimes, but it's all I know. I have no idea what it is like to have a spare set of hands around for JD's 2am feeding and neither does JD. He sees my face when he wakes up and it's my shoulder he falls back asleep on. I sing to him during his bath and I make raspberries on his tummy with my mouth. I feed him his bottle and kiss his eyelashes. I dance

Salon.com had a great piece up this week: One parent is still a family: Words to the wise for a single parent from the child of one, this week in Salon's reader community, Table Talk.

Here, an excerpt from Blogger Sky Bluesky: Everybody's family is weird and has its own unusual dynamics. Moms and dads divorce, there are aunts and uncles and grandparents who act as caretakers, there are stepmoms and stepdads. Adopted kids. Kids with disabilities. Kids where one is in special ed and one is in mainstream classes. Alcoholic parents. Disinterested parents. Parents who work too much and never see their kids. Kids adapt to whatever circumstances they're in, and that's what "normal" is to them.Being a single mom is hard sometimes, but it's all I know. I have no idea what it is like to have a spare set of hands around for JD's 2am feeding and neither does JD. He sees my face when he wakes up and it's my shoulder he falls back asleep on. I sing to him during his bath and I make raspberries on his tummy with my mouth. I feed him his bottle and kiss his eyelashes.* I* dance with him every morning. I change his diaper. *I *dress him. I play with him. I'm his mother...and his father. It's normal to us. It's all we know. And if it seems not so normal to JD one day I'll answer his questions.